One Mistake in the Smith-Morra Gambit can be Fatal | Climbing the Rating Ladder vs. 1966

In this continuation of the "Climbing the Rating Ladder" series I take on players of various ratings levels while pointing out typical mistakes and spots for improvement along the way (possibly my own!? :)). Here I commentate a 10+0 game against a player rated 1966 on Chess.com. The Smith-Morra Gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3) is a sound gambit, and it may especially appeal to those who play lines like the Danish Gambit or Evan's Gambit as well. Should Black accept the gambit, they ought to be 1) theoretically knowledgeable, and 2) willing to spend time should White provoke complications, e.g. sacrificing the knight on d5, as I play in this game. Remember: the sharper the position, the more you need to use your time! It's difficult or downright impossible to think your way out of a bad position in chess.
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[@maz4145]

Nice to see John learned his lesson on checking the increment 😆

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

Yeah! 😂To that end, Chess.com should really make it more obvious what the time control is when you're playing/watching. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but you have to look in the chat of the game and try to find it listed in tiny print in parentheses.

[@DrColePuterbaugh]

@@JohnBartholomewChess The solution is: lichess. 😄

[@terryleddra1973]

I would love to see John play Danya in a 15/10 game. I would like to see both of them post a video from their viewpoint, analysis as well from both viewpoints and a discussion after, Three great videos from the two best chess instructors on you tube. Make this happen!

[@matiasiozzia9547]

I completely agree! My two favorite teachers.

[@dannytran1587]

Agreed. I’m just worried Danya’s going to make it extremely sharp and out-tactic John

[@robertgelblum5154]

John plays a model Morra gambit game, giving an exemplary demonstration of just how lethal this line can be in the right hands. Regarding the Morra gambit itself: I remember a chess acquaintance many years ago who told me he was thinking of taking up the Morra (which he called the Matulovic gambit, as he was from Serbia), and who wanted to know my opinion of the gambit. My opinion then and now: I don't know if the gambit is 100% correct against perfect Black play, but it is a very dangerous practical weapon, especially against club level players and/or at fast time controls. The fact that as Black playing the Sicilian against the Morra, I would almost always give back the pawn by 3. . . Nf6 (thereby transposing to my usual choice against the Alapin/c3 Sicilian) tells you how much I personally respect, even fear, the Morra gambit accepted!

[@rossmarino3045]

As a member of the analysis gang, 22 min of Smith-Morra review is awesome! XD

[@robertcooper1952]

Thanks, John, the Smith-Morra Gambit is lots of fun.

[@josephsalmonte4995]

I was just in the mood for a chilled JB video. I love the Smith-Morrah too 🙂

[@jamesbabkes1493]

Another excellent video from one of the best chess coaches in the world!

[@ccccccc3333]

analysis gang 🤜🤛

[@JFresh1977]

I find the Morra to be easy to learn if you're an Italian game player. If they accept the gambit then development in almost all situations follows an Italian game setup - you put your knight on F3, you put your Bishop on C4. From there, the next two likely moves come pretty naturally: QE2 and RF-D1. And don't forget IM Mark Esserman's sage advice: When in doubt - chase the queen! :)

[@connormonday]

I love when you play in coffeehouse style for CTRL. Great game. 3...e5 is also an interesting way to decline the gambit. I studied Alex Colovic's course with it and had good results. Esserman seemed to think highly of it in his book.

[@screamingliner]

Pre-engine analysis is my favorite part!

[@kitetm7596]

Good to see you posting regularly now :D

[@WhiskeySour89]

Heyyy I've been reading Mayhem in the Morra off and on this year. Good to see it featured here ❤

[@adamh6094]

Thanks John! At my level, a6 and e6 work well against the smith-morra. I’ll be keeping an eye out for that pesky dark square bishop though… Very instructive! Thanks, and take care 😊

[@katis999]

excellent, what a great position and so calm and well played by John. Thanks

[@Victor-ji1rz]

Just what I wanted as a 2000 rated player picking up the morra, thanks !

[@griffinbur1118]

Really rooting for John to throw in a "mocked" or "banned".

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

Shout-out to Marc!

[@MasterofMayyhem]

Mayhem!;)

[@paulm4431]

SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!

[@marcofrey2903]

@@MasterofMayyhem Mayhem in the Morra has taught me a lot about chess! Thanks.

[@ThomasEWalker]

Cheers JB! Love the Smith-Morra for both sides! It's just plain fun all the time. In below-2000 chess, you're almost always on your own and you have to be creative... and I always take the pawn as Black. 'Mine mine mine, allllll mine!' ~ Daffy Duck. Greedy little guy. (My idol.) :-)

[@MattPotter1]

The Smith Morra is the main recommendation against the Sicilian in GM Niclas Huschenbeth’s new 1. e4 course on Chessable. I am trying to learn this right now, so the timing of your video is great! A truly interesting opening, with the knight sac on d5 and the opening up of the central files.

[@j.walker6845]

Gotta love all the pins and pressure.

[@aaronjosephs2560]

I just recently started playing the Smith-Morra and having so much fun with it

[@goldenlion3184]

Phew! A 10/0 game where I didn't bite off all my fingernails! Nice game and great analysis!

[@chh_mumu]

Love the Smith-Morra and your commentary!

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

🙏 Thank you for watching!

[@danicajohnson2664]

After 8..b5? 9.Bxb5! is what Marc Esserman himself has played almost a dozen times. I haven't studied it myself, but after 9.Bb3 Na5 is really annoying. The position after 9.Bxb5 looks like a LOT of fun to a Morra player like myself.

[@joeyblogsy]

Smith-Morra is a great opening, I’m glad to see you play it more and more 👍 😎

[@towtruckn]

John great video!; your opponent in this position had the wrong move order and as you say if you intend to play as black you have to know your stuff. Playing as black It's worth going over the Siberian trap in the Smith Morra to know what your really aiming for by playing ...e6. Aside from this the best set up for black is first ...Nc6 followed by ...d6 and then ...a6 stopping the checkmate you demonstrated in the video.

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

Thanks for watching and for your comment about the Siberian Trap, Peter! Sounds like you have personal knowledge of this line - cheers 👍

[@towtruckn]

@@JohnBartholomewChess Your right I've spent some time studying the line. In the past it was not encountered so much, but with many top players like Hikaru adopting it; it's essential to have a solid understanding of the position otherwise you'll simply be wiped of the board. Anyway great content 👍

[@ayanokojikiyotaka4712]

Thanks John, this inspired me to learn the Smith Morra gambit. I really liked the position for white, it felt more spacey and clean haha.

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

Love it!! Best wishes with your Morra journey! 😀

[@fireballxl-5748]

Hey John, Been a long while since I've commented on your videos. Very interesting game. BTW, I hope you made a fortune on Chessable as I suspected you would. God bless you John. Re:Esserman (sp?) nobody knows the Smith Morra better than Esserman!

[@dannytran1587]

Love when you play stronger opponents

[@Slurmzy]

D5 is also a good way to decline the Morra, and I think it's what Yasser recommended in one of his SLCC videos. I think just using whatever line transposes into your main Alapin line is the way to go though (for me thats D5). I remember Danya saying that some past world champion or great player from like 100 years ago used to say that Nf6 is clearly the only critical move vs the Alapin, don't remember who that was though. D3 is interesting though and keeps the game in unique territory, might look into that. Awesome stuff though John as always! Easily some of the best chess content out there.

[@dannytran1587]

9:00 Deadly!

[@solomontruthlover5308]

Great video as always

[@paulm4431]

Love the Morra! Thanks for the video. I would like to see one where your opponent plays a fianchetto on the kingside and then castles behind it. I really struggle in those positions.

[@westofwahpeton4692]

I have a hard time playing fast enough even when my opponent blasts out moves lol. I do have wins when I have less than 10 seconds left and my opponent has 2 minutes. I see a lot of players that play bullet at all time controls.

[@meu02136]

It’s weird watching this without juri’s theme playing

[@ryanonymous]

last couple of videos you can really hear the noise gate working on your microphone. the release sounds a bit aggressive and it's a bit pumping and breathing when your voice gets quieter...

[@caius6019]

1900+ rapid is well into top 1%. When i hit around 1740ish i was top 1% so i can imagine 1900 is pretty deep! Players a beast lol

[@inf0phreak]

Excuse me, but I'm rated ~2200 classical on Lichess, and it says I'm "better than 98.7% of classical players". No way someone rated below 2000 is "well into top 1%"

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

@@inf0phreak It's possible, since lichess ratings are mostly inflated compared to Chess.com.

[@greenUserman]

But yeah, lichess ratings are also inflated, especially for rapid and even more so classical.

[@alexf0101]

gotta love the morra

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

Really fun opening, agreed!

[@stag6161]

Good stuff

[@josiahroyer1062]

SMG ftw!

[@Orion-zq8jf]

10 plus 0 is my go to nowadays... around hitting 40.. not as fast as i used to be lol

[@seanunderscorepry]

When the game is over in nearly 10 minutes and you see about 20 minutes of video to go ❤❤❤

[@kdawghomie]

Love the Smith-Morra, but man is it double-edged in classical (my preferred time control). I'm assuming my issue is that, at 2000 rating Lichess, I'm just not tactically strong enough to extract everything I should out of this opening.

[@marcofrey2903]

Yeah. I generally do great with it but I'm considering taking up a main line as an alternate weapon. It's nice to know you have another option, and it can be surprisingly refreshing to play a line where you have many options and you don't have to prove some positional compensation or be anxious if you're losing the initiative.

[@swift8821]

Here’s a funny line. At 10:00 instead of bd6 you play qf6. If black replies with O-O then be5 is forced mate!

[@dkol2000]

nice background!

[@marcofrey2903]

Very instructive! I've been playing the Morra exclusively from 1000-1700 and I'm in no hurry to adopt a main line. Though, if you have a favorite, send me your recommendations, y'all! Currently, I'm looking into diving headfirst into Open Sicilian territory but I'm also considering the Alapin, Delayed Alapin, or Rossolimo. (For reference, I generally like attacking, open positions with earlier threats. I play the Evans Gambit, Greco non-gambit (e5), Scotch Gambit, Knight Attack, Fantasy, Modified Milner Barry, etc.)

[@leo-um6yt]

Hey John, at 7:30 did you look at Qf6 instead of Bg3

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

Nope I don't think I looked at it, but could be a candidate move I imagine it'd be kinda like the analysis later where ...Rg8-g6 was helpful for Black

[@Evilanious]

2:10. This is one thing titled players don't realize. How lonely you are at the top. The vast, vast majority of the userbase of the big chess sites are casual players that would get trounced by weak club players. That guy you played is in the top 0.2 percentile. That 2 is after the decimal.

[@juleslondon3088]

Yeah, I think 1500 CC Rapid is top 3%, which surprised me as 1500s tend to make a lot of basic errors. I think ~2000, like this guy, is a strong club player though; not your almost-master-level ones but strong nonetheless.

[@Evilanious]

Correct. I didn't mean he was a weak club player. Just that the large bulk of players are below 1000

[@trapperjohn7571]

I'd guess that your opponent thought he was winning after 11... exd5 because he wasn't calculating far enough ahead to see just how dangerous that pawn would be. Maybe there's some chess term for this concept I'm not aware of, but something that bothers me is enemy pawns I can't challenge with my own pawns. Also, any pawn in my half of the board is cause for concern

[@saitamabeach2200]

Looks like the Scottish flag? With a current rating of 1966! That's bloody hilarious 😂

[@knishofdeath]

I recently bought the Mayhem Chessable course. Having fun already but haven't learned all the lines yet as some of the moves are wild and unintuitive.

[@Ss010101]

There's a Smith-Morra Gambit Declined, Scandinavian Formation variation as well. c3 answered by d5. Jussayin'. ;) Esserman collab when??

[@danjeory3659]

The a6, d6, Ne7, Nc6 set-up is the set-up I use against the SM, as this is what I saw John doing whenever he faced it in lichess plays. I love this set-up, as it's so solid and, at my level at least, white has difficulty proving any compensation and often those players snap at some point and lash out recklessly. Unlike this opponent though, I find it best to get the Queen to c7 early instead of going for a quick b5 and Bb7. This avoids any Nd5 shenanigans....

[@DreamyJives]

@19:49 - Dictum? I barely knew him.

[@mikaelplaysguitar]

Knight d5 double exclam!!

[@ztobinz]

Hey John this is guys

[@firebug3256]

Analysis gang rise up!

[@platonfoucault1087]

Do we have increment here!?!?!

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

Negative 😀

[@SuperYtc1]

John spends 1% of his time to play e4.

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

The intro is worth it 😉

[@SuperYtc1]

@@JohnBartholomewChess New series: Using the clock as an intro. 😂 But joking aside yes I agree!

[@MrSupernova111]

In all fairness, you're right that those that play this system likely know it much better than players on the black side who might not see it often. You know about the Esserman-Vishy game so you also probably know the Esserman-Van Wely game which followed a similar line as the one you played and Esserman blew Van Wely off the board. No disrespect to you but this game shows the hypocrisy of titled players when they say opening theory isn't so important. Respect to the opponent for defending as best he could deep into the opening stage. If anyone wants to avoid the main line (...e6) but also doesn't want to go into the Alapin there is also 5...d6 which cuts out much of the nonsense from the white side and its far more practical in my opinion.

[@JohnBartholomewChess]

There are many degrees of understanding when it comes to openings. For example, I know of the Esserman - van Wely game, but more so the general theme, that is Esserman sticking his knight on d5 when van Wely had played ...b7-b5 and Black getting torched. I was not sure about the exact move order, but remembering the idea is helpful, of course.

[@MrSupernova111]

@@JohnBartholomewChess . Yep. That's the one. My point is that opening theory does matter probably starting at the intermediate level. I agree that its a matter of degrees and of course opening theory should only be part of overall chess study. However, it seems to me that too many titled players don't feel that opening theory is important for us amateurs while they spend most of their time learning theory. You may not be one of those but its just what I have observed. Anyway, nice game. Thanks for the reply!

[@bbbrown3408]

all a forced loss stay clear any sharp theory you will never need it horrible theory